February blows away global heat record

by

Andrea Thompson

,

Wx Shift

Global temperatures for February 2016. Image: NASA

The incredible heat so far this year — even though it is only two months in — could set the planet up for its third record warm year in a row, besting the record set just last year. 2015 also saw the biggest single-year jump in carbon dioxide levels at the observatory atop Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, a record that came in part because of El Niño’s influence on greenhouse gas-emitting wildfires in the tropics.